The Coming Accidental War with Iran

Our attention has been rightfully turned to the stomach-churning photos of women being dragged by the hair through the streets of Egypt and Bahrain, and reports of yet more deaths in Syria. As this year ends however, it is worth noting with a bit of apprehension that Iran has been relatively quiet compared to its neighbors. In fact, when John Dudin of the New York Council on Foreign Relations reviewed the ten most significant developments in the Middle East in 2011 Iran did not make the list at all--even after the downing of the US drone earlier this month. Either things are improving and we are learning to better deal with Iran, or this is merely a pause in a decades-long estrangement which could turn violent, providing a shock to the global economy it might not be able to withstand.

War with Iran would mean the closing of the Strait of Hormuz, where the Iranian Navy began ten days of war games to practice doing just that on December 24th. At least 30% of all seaborne oil shipments pass through this chokepoint. Oil prices have been rising on the strength of the maneuvers alone: an actual blockade would double the price of oil overnight.

Now that America's withdrawal from Iraq has been formalized, and Osama bin Laden, Hosni Mubarak, Muammar Gaddafi, Ali Abdullah Saleh, and Zine el Abidine Ben Ali have all been vanquished, after a year of unbelievable changes throughout the Middle East, my prediction is that Iran is about to regain center stage in the region. As a result of the US withdrawal, Iraq could be prone to more violence, and the Iranian leadership must certainly have taken note that none of the toppled leaders, including Sadam Hussein, possessed formal nuclear capabilities.

Scott Olsen, U.S. Vet Wounded at Occupy Oakland, on Recovery, Protests, Iraq and Bradley Manning

For our last broadcast of 2011, we turn to someone who became one the faces of the global Occupy movement this year. Scott Olsen, a 24-year-old former U.S. Marine who served two tours in the Iraq War, was critically wounded after being shot in the head by a police projectile at Occupy Oakland. In a rare interview, Olsen joins us to discuss his life-threatening ordeal, his involvement in this year’s historic Wisconsin and Occupy protests, the case of accused Army whistleblower Bradley Manning and how he too had access to similar types of information, and the U.S. withdrawal from Iraq. "They aren’t respecting our right to assemble, protest and redress our government for grievances," Olsen says of police repression of the Occupy protests. "They are terrorizing us from going out [to demonstrations]. That is a sad statement for our country." Olsen also says he expects to rejoin the Occupy and antiwar protests as his recovery progresses. "I look forward to being a part of the 99 percent and Iraq Veterans Against the War in 2012," he says.

Video
Source: Democracy Now! 

Nouri Al Maliki Accrues Power

BAGHDAD -- In the week since the last American troops left Iraq, Shiite Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki ordered an arrest warrant for the country's highest-ranking Sunni official, threatened to exclude the rival sect's main political party from his government and warned that "rivers of blood" would flow if Sunnis seek an autonomous region.

The moves confirmed what many longtime observers of Iraqi politics have suspected since al-Maliki came to office more than five years ago – that he has an authoritarian streak and beneath his tireless rhetoric about national unity is essentially a sectarian politician.

As a result, the veneer of sectarian unity that the United States tried to paint over Iraq's leadership throughout a 9-year presence is quickly being washed away after the departure of American forces.

The first casualty could be the unity government that al-Maliki heads, uneasily combining his powerful Shiite alliance with a Sunni-backed bloc. It took nine months after Iraq's elections in March last year to put it together, under heavy American pressure to include the Sunnis, but al-Maliki never liked it and is increasingly saying he wants a government based on the majority in parliament, which would squeeze out Sunnis.

And al-Maliki has made clear he intends keep a strong grip heading that government.

Canada's Economy Second Best On BMO Scorecard

OTTAWA - Canada's economy performed relatively well last year, but not enough to displace Germany as the top country in the Group of Seven big industrial nations, the Bank of Montreal says.

The chartered bank's annual report card for economic performance puts Canada slightly ahead of where it stood in 2010 cumulatively on five benchmarks, including unemployment and government deficits.

But the combined score of 81.6 is well back of Germany's 89.2 out of a maximum 100.

The scorecard suggests that the Harper government's contention that Canada leads the G7 in economic performance is somewhat of an exaggeration.

While Canada scores higher than the G7 average, exporting powerhouse Germany tops Canada in four of five major categories — jobless rate, inflation, government fiscal health and the current account balance with the rest of the world.

Romeo Dallaire: Senator Predicts Arab Spring And Occupy Wall Street Are Just the Beginning

If there were two things that defined 2011, they were the Arab Spring uprisings that threw the Middle East into turmoil and the Occupy Wall Street protests in North America and Europe. But Canadian Senator Romeo Dallaire, the former U.N. general lionized for leading the besieged peacekeepers during the Rwandan Genocide, says a third revolution connects the two movements — the communications revolution.

“We are in an era of conflict with a certain world disorder, a time of revolutions, with the communications revolution being one,” Dallaire tells Huffington Post Canada.

Dallaire begs to differ with author Malcolm Gladwell's argument in his essay “Small Change: Why the Revolution Will Not be Tweeted," that technology and social media play no real role in high-risk activism,

“It's starting. We are entering an era where the revolution in communications is empowering the under-25s and they're able to start realizing that they can coalesce in real-time around the world. They’re also getting more information about what's going on around them, whether they want it or not, because it's all being punched out every minute,” he says, adding that their power extends beyond protests.

U.S. warns Iran that oil disruption 'will not be tolerated'

The U.S. warned Iran Wednesday that it will not tolerate any disruption of naval traffic through the Strait of Hormuz, after Iran's navy chief said the Islamic Republic is capable of closing the vital oil route if the West imposes new sanctions targeting Tehran's oil exports.

Iran's Adm. Habibollah Sayyari told state-run Press TV that closing the strait, which is the only sea outlet for the crucial oil fields in and around the Persian Gulf, “is very easy” for his country's naval forces.

It was the second such warning by Iran in two days, reflecting Tehran's concern that the West is about to impose new sanctions that could hit the country's biggest source of revenue, its oil sector. On Tuesday, Vice President Mohamed Reza Rahimi threatened to close the strait if the West imposes such sanctions.

In response, the Bahrain-based U.S. 5th Fleet's spokeswoman warned that any disruption at the strait “will not be tolerated.”

The spokeswoman, Lt. Rebecca Rebarich, said the U.S. Navy is “always ready to counter malevolent actions to ensure freedom of navigation.”

Emails show Ford team wavered on garbage contract

Mayor Rob Ford’s administration had concerns, at least briefly, about the company that won the contract to collect residential garbage west of Yonge St., internal emails show.

The emails, obtained through a freedom of information request, do not suggest that the city has had any problems with the company, GFL Environmental East Corp. They reveal, however, that the Ford administration was privately unsure about GFL even as it publicly expressed strong confidence.

Councillor Denzil Minnan-Wong, the Ford ally who chairs the public works committee, stood at a "Respect for Taxpayers" podium in Ford’s office on Oct. 19 and announced that GFL had beaten its competitors with an exceptionally low bid that would save the city $11 million per year, far more than expected. "The taxpayers are the big winners today," he said.

Some of Ford’s left-leaning council opponents and the union representing city garbage workers had already expressed skepticism about the company’s ability to do the job for the price it quoted. Minnan-Wong told reporters that such critics were engaging in “fear-mongering.”

"This is a good-news story," he said.

The next day, he sounded far less certain.

Expect higher payroll taxes in 2012, taxpayers group says

OTTAWA—Canadians will see the biggest increase in payroll taxes in a decade next year, according to a Canadian Taxpayers Federation analysis of how many of your dollars will go to federal government coffers.

Employment insurance premiums will increase 5 cents per $100 of insurable earnings as of Jan. 1. That’s half of what the Conservative government originally planned but the analysis shows employees will still see a $53 jump to $840 in EI premiums in 2012

Combine that with the federal pension plan contributions and it means employees will have to give up a total of $3,147 in payroll taxes next year — an increase of about $142 over this year.

Employers will have to shell out about $164 more in payroll taxes next year, for a total of $3,483.

The combined net increase of 4.84 per cent is the highest since 2002.

“Finance Canada tells us that we should be thanking the government because they are not going to be raising payroll taxes as much as they promised,” said Derek Fildebrandt, national research director for the advocacy group.

Scott Walker: Wisconsin Recall Process 'Pretty Unusual'

Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker (R) criticized his state's recall process, attacking the state's elections and ethics agency for allowing questionable names on petitions.

"The whole process is pretty unusual," Walker said Tuesday during an appearance on Fox News. "We had one of the local affiliates here [reporting] about someone signing it, proudly saying they signed 80 different recall petitions. As we see it, you should only be able to sign it once and only once, and it should be for a legal citizen."

Walker was criticizing the recent news that signatures from Mickey Mouse and Adolf Hitler would count on recall petitions as long as they are properly dated and include a valid Wisconsin address. The Government Accountability Board, which runs the recall process in Wisconsin, has said that it won't eliminate duplicate or questionable signatures from recall petitions, leaving the responsibility to validate signatures to the campaigns.

Walker's campaign and the state's Republican Party director have filed a lawsuit against the board, saying that allowing multiple signatures is a violation of the equal protection clauses of the state and U.S. constitutions.

Wisconsin Senate Leader Scott Fitzgerald (R-Juneau), who supports Walker, was recently confronted over an email he sent to constituents titled "Mickey Mouse is helping..." asking them to "fight the fraud that is happening right now on recall petitions in my district." The email, which questioned the authenticity of the recall petitions, alleged opponents of the Badger State's governor were "going to cheat to get Scott Walker out."

Original Article
Source: Huff 

SEC Doubles Down On Its Efforts To Find Hedge Fund Fraud

Memo to hedge fund managers: It's a bad time to try to overachieve. The Securities and Exchange Commission is cracking down on hedge fund fraud, and the first places they're looking are the firms that seem to be doing a little too well.

According to a report in The Wall Street Journal, the SEC has devised a method of sorting data that highlights hedge funds whose balance sheets never seem to suffer, no matter how rocky the market gets. The WSJ notes that the agency is trying to spot the next Bernie Madoff before he or she can defraud investors of billions of dollars, the way Madoff did with his Ponzi scheme. Already, the WSJ says, the SEC has initiated four civil-fraud lawsuits based on their data review system.

It's an auspicious time for the SEC to be seen bringing the hammer down on Wall Street scofflaws, because many have criticized the agency since the height of the financial crisis for not doing more to identify and prosecute financial malpractice.

In one such high-profile instance, Harry Markopolos, the fraud investigator who spent almost a decade building a case against Madoff's wealth management firm, told the House Financial Services Committee in 2009 that the SEC was "financially illiterate" and "captive to the industry it regulates."